


your body was the map

by tosca1390



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were always better with actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your body was the map

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere between the Bount Arc and the Arrancar Arc.

*

During her current stint in the World of the Living, Renji visits more often than he really should. If he were in any other division, Rukia would wonder how he got away with it. But because he is in her brother’s division, she thinks he gets more of a pass. It’s a sign, however vague and ill-defined, that her brother cares, and misses her, so she doesn’t mind. At least, not all of the time.

Today, Renji sneaks up on her as she sits at Ichigo’s desk. Ichigo has already left for school. Earlier, when she said she wasn’t going, he had turned around directly from his bedroom door and stalked back to the bed, towering over her where she stood at its side. She could see the concern thick in his gaze and lining his face, even as he covers with annoyance and humor.

She had a good reason not to go; she has an appointment later with Urahara concerning a new rash of Hollows, and a headache lingers at her temple, so she decides the act of school can take an intermission today. Of course, it takes five minutes to convince him that she wasn’t lying and leaving, and in that time, vacillating between yelling at him under her breath and smacking him repeatedly, she couldn’t help but feel grateful. He needs her here, he _wants_ her here, and it’s stabilizing.

As she sits at his desk, writing out notes for her meeting with Urahara, she sits up as the air thickens.

“No school for little Rukia today?” Renji teases as he hops through the open window.

“You do understand how ridiculous you look in that, don’t you?” she retorts as she glances him over. Why Renji has decided that tie-dye and vests are a good look for him in gigai form, she doesn’t understand.

He scowls, broad hands planted on his hips. “Because Ichigo’s wardrobe is so much more flattering.”

“It doesn’t have rainbows.”

Renji strolls around the bed and past the desk, moving towards the closet. “Not quite as nice as the mansion, huh?” The door is open, revealing the neatly made makeshift bed, undisturbed. “And so pristine and neat. You were never one to make your bed.”

Rukia hums and rests her hands in her lap, watching him observe. The bed is pristine more often than not, now. She rarely lays her head there. Now, she sleeps where she wants. “What are you doing here, Renji? Is everything all right?”

“Fine, fine,” he says, waving a broad swipe of a hand. The black lines at the edges of his face curl with his wide slice of a smile. “We heard of the new crop-up of Hollows. Captain sent me to make sure you two were all right.”

A flush curls at her collarbones. “We’re fine,” she murmurs, tucking her hair behind her ears.

“I bet,” he says dryly.

She glares at him, drumming her fingers on her thighs. Her skirt rumples with the movement. “We _are_.”

“Captain also wants to know when you’re coming back,” he adds, leaning against the frame of the closet door as he stares her down.

“Not yet,” she says shortly. “I have my orders.”

“Ichigo can handle the Hollows. Why are you still _here_ , Rukia?”

She fixes him with a flat stare. Her sword hand curls, the fingers searching for the hilt of her sword. “Until I am called back, I am here. Is that so hard for you to comprehend?”

Shrugging, he shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. “We could use you in Soul Society.”

“I’m not a lieutenant,” she says, more bite than she meant for sharpening each word. “I am not a captain. I am not the necessary fixture that you and my brother are, Renji.”

“You’ll be a lieutenant,” Renji says quickly.

She doesn’t look away from him, even as the tops of his cheeks redden. They do not have these conversations, the two of them; he is her friend and they grew up together, but he has somehow pushed past her into a hierarchy she cannot touch, not yet. There are moments in battle and in the night that she thinks she is more than they let themselves see, that she deserves to have the badge and its weight at her arm.

“But I’m not one yet. I stay where I am needed, and I’m needed here,” she says flatly.

He sighs, shaking his head. “Yeah, well. Gives me an excuse to visit, I guess.”

“Which you do too much,” she says lightly.

With a shrug, he pushes off the closet doorframe and moves across the room to the open window. “Come on. I’ll go with you to Urahara’s shop,” he says before leaping out of the window into the bright sunny day.

She shakes her head and tucks her notes into the belt of her dress. All these men that surround her, they have no subtlety, no tact.

*

She leaves Renji at Urahara’s and hurries home after the meeting. Urahara had been his usual carefree self, with a _not to worry, you and Kurosaki have it under control_. It’s too hot for the early spring day, the warmth settling heavily on her shoulders. It leaves a sick feeling in her stomach, anticipation for the worst.

One day, she would like to enjoy a day, or even just part of one, she thinks as she turns the corner towards the Kurosaki clinic.

His bedroom window is open. It’s easier than the front door, and dealing with the constant press of Yuzu and Karin, and Isshin’s bizarre spiritual pressure. They are a family of oddities and rough edges and murky pasts, and as much as she has grown to care for them, there are some days where she can’t handle them, not alone. So she skips the front door and slips in easily through the open window. Ichigo still isn’t home from school; some days, he stays late to make up work from unfortunate absences.

They have never talked about how much he missed and what he gave up to rescue her from her execution. There never seems time, and then when there is, it never seems right to dredge up and salt the wounds of the past. But then again, they never talk about anything. Even as she knows of the Hollow power inside him, always ranging for control, and how Zangetsu speaks to him, they do not speak of it. Just as he always lingers with his hands and mouth at the rippled scar over her sternum, where Aizen took something she still cannot place, they do not talk about it.

They were always better with actions.

She ties her hair back at the nape of her neck in a loose knot as she sits at his desk once more, opening the notebook there to a fresh clean page. In her free moments she has taken to writing him notes, in the code only they understand. Even Kon is beyond these notes. She doesn’t give them to him, not as such. Instead she hides them in the pockets of his jackets and pants, in between the pages of his textbooks. There will be a time when she will be gone, maybe not to return; she wants him to have something left of her, beyond the scars and the memories of battle.

“Hey! That’s my desk.”

“You never use it,” Rukia murmurs as she scribbles across crumpled paper, the pencil smudging.

“I use it all the time, actually,” Ichigo mutters. His bedroom door shuts behind them. She hears the thump of his satchel against the wood floor.

“I never see you use it,” she amends with a sharp little grin, glancing over her shoulder at him.

Ichigo stalks his way across the room to sit on the edge of his bed. His tie is loose at his neck, hanging limply. “That’s because when you’re here, you claim it.”

She shrugs. “Would you rather I not be here?”

“No,” he says quickly, hands resting on his knees. The late afternoon sun glances off his hair, reflecting a burnished orange into the air.

“Well, there you have it,” she says at last, her fingers curling around the pencil tightly.

“How is Urahara?” Ichigo asks, lying back on the bed with a sigh. He lays perpendicular to the bed, his feet resting on the floor.

“The same. We’re apparently handling everything very well,” she says lightly.

He grunts, folding his hands over his stomach. “Of course we are. We’re the best.”

She can’t help but roll her eyes, pushing away from his desk and sitting next to him on the bed. They are pressed hip to thigh, the warmth of him radiating through her even through his uniform and her skirt. “Renji stopped by, too.”

“And he didn’t stick around? Bummer.”

“I almost think you like him,” she teases.

Ichigo cracks an eye open, mouth a thin line. He is so much more serious than when she first met him. If she didn’t believe in some idea of meant-to-be moments, she would almost wish she hadn’t met him, and brought all of this onto him. But there is an intertwining to their lives that she cannot fight any longer, for better or for worse.

“I do like him. He’s your friend, and mine. Kind of,” he drawls with a smirk.

She laughs, shaking her head. “Kind of.”

His hand falls to her thigh, warm and steady. “Everything okay back in Soul Society?” he asks, his fingers shifting against the thin cotton of her skirt.

She wets her lips and glances back at him, nodding. “They were just checking in.”

“Can’t trust me and you to handle some overeager Hollows, eh?”

“That’s not it at all,” she says.

“Heh. Okay,” he murmurs, mouth turning down. His fingers dig gently into the muscle of her thigh.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she shifts her weight and settles over him, her knees resting at either side of his hips. Her skirt rides up to mid-thigh, the warm breeze curling against bare skin. His hands fall to her waist on reflex, both of his eyes wide open. “There’s nothing out there we can’t handle,” she says at last as her fingers catch at his tie, playing with the ends.

He smirks, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Doubt Byakuya and company feel that way.”

“You beat most of them, didn’t you?” she retorts, rolling her eyes.

A low sound rumbles out of his chest. His fingers slide across the span of her waist down to the rising hem of her skirt, touching bare smooth skin. She sits back, strands of hair falling out of the loose knot across her throat. “And you?”

“What about me?” she asks impatiently, her fingers tugging at his tie.

He sits up, holding her steady as their chests come flush together. His face, set in serious lines, is now very close to hers. Her grip tightens at his tie. “You’re better than hanging around with a Substitute Shinigami like me, Rukia. You’ve progressed past babysitting me.”

She elbows him in the ribs even as she arches closer, letting his fingers sink past the hem of her dress to the skin of her thighs. Their mouths graze each other, knocking together with every shift and move. “I’m not babysitting you. Though you do your best to make it feel that way sometimes,” she mutters.

He laughs, a low sharp sound in her ear. “I just like to keep you on your toes.”

“Because doing my job isn’t enough,” she drawls.

“Eh, I don’t think so,” he murmurs as his mouth catches hers, open and warm. His fingers press between her thighs as hers climb up the length of his tie to his throat and the line of his jaw, holding him there as her lips part to his. The smell of cherry blossoms lingers in her nose as the heavy heat of the day sticks to their skins.

He licks into her mouth, the hand not between her thighs sliding up to rest between her shoulder blades. His weight shifts again as he turns and presses her into the bed, stretching them out along the mussed sheets. She parts her thighs with a sigh, her fingers digging into the cool thin cotton of his uniform shirt. Buttons come undone under her fingertips as she bites at his bottom lip. Together like this, they are always too fast or too slow. Today, she is acutely aware of the time slipping away between them, and the life below them in the house.

Fast it is, she thinks as his fingers slide under her underwear and to the wet heat waiting there. “Rough day at school?” she breathes out through a laugh, her lips hard at his jaw.

He hums, low and dark from the back of his throat. His free hand palms her breast through her dress as his teeth graze her neck. “I always forget how reassuring it is to have you in class until you’re not there,” he murmurs.

Heat flushes her skin, pink and intense and too warm. She bites her lip on a moan as a slow lean finger eases into her. “You saying you missed me, Ichigo?”

“Shut up,” he mutters.

She turns her cheek to his pillow with a soft laugh, pushing and pressing at the loose open fall of his shirt. He is tense and hot under her touch. Her nails catch at his chest, at the scars that map his skin. “You’re an idiot,” she murmurs, words stuttering on her tongue as his thumb finds her clit.

“ _I’m_ the idiot?” he exclaims, his mouth a sharp curve of a smile against her collarbones.

Shushing him, she arches her hips into his touch, biting back a moan. “Why do I always have to remind you that your family is two floors below you?” she asks, breath loose and rattling in her chest.

“See, right now, I’m trying to _forget_ that,” he murmurs against her skin, a second finger sliding and curling into her. His thumb teases at her clit. His hands are strong and broad and clever now, from training with Zangetsu and practice. She likes when he uses them for purposes other than cleaving Hollows, though.

His skin sticks to hers as his mouth drags over the open expanse of her chest, dampening the neckline of her dress. Sweat lingers at her brow, the small of her back. “Someone has to keep you focused,” she murmurs, her fingers dragging along his bare back up to his scalp, twining in his thick bright hair.

“Maybe I can do that myself, now,” he says against Aizen’s thick scar, his lips gentle on the skin. He always lingers there, the guilt heavy even in nighttime moments thick with silence.

“Prove it,” she retorts, her skin trembling under his touch.

His hair brushes her throat, her collarbones. She can feel his smile against her chest, his tongue soft there. “Is that a challenge, Rukia?” he asks as he quickens the slide of his fingers inside her. She is giving and flushed and wet under his touch, muscles trembling.

She can’t answer, tongue heavy with every word and question never posed. Her fingers tangle in the thick spikes of his hair, pulling his face back up to hers. Before he can say another word, she kisses him, hard and wet and unforgiving. Her teeth press into the soft line of his mouth as her eyes fall shut. There’s an odd stillness between them, just the press of their bodies and hands, skin to skin. It feels like a battle, though she doesn’t know whether she wants to win or not.

“ _Rukia_ ,” he hisses against her mouth, thumb pressed hard to her clit.

The sound of her phone, shrill and sharp, breaks through the thick air. She opens her eyes, halfway there and wanting. He is hard against her thigh, pupils blown wide and breath stuttering in his chest.

“Fuck,” he says with a scowl, shifting off of her. His fingers slide from between her legs and she almost gasps from the loss. “Fuck, _fuck_.”

“Yeah,” she breathes out, shifting up to a sitting position. Her arms reach, hands fumbling for her phone as it lays harmlessly on the desk.

Ichigo rises quickly, backing away towards the door. “I’ll just – I just need –“ he mutters, face red as she’s ever seen it.

She ducks her head and nods. Her hair, now all loose from the knot, crests across her hot face. Her hands clench around the phone as the door shuts with a hollow sort of sound. It reverberates right through her, like loss.

The lingering heat and trembling from his hands on her doesn’t fade easily.

*

“It’s always a park, and it’s always a kid,” Ichigo mutters as they land together near the edge of one of Karakura Town’s parks. Multi-armed and multi-eyed, a Hollow looms over the trees as it chases after the spirit of a young shivering girl.

“It’s not, though,” she says with a sigh, the hilt of her sword a heavy comfort. In her Shinigami form, she can leave the trembles of earlier behind, though the memory remains.

“I was just saying,” he says, a little too sharply.

She glances over at him, as he takes Zangetsu from his back, the linens fluttering in the early evening breeze. “How do you want to do this?” she asks.

“Eh,” he sighs, resting the point of his blade into the soft grass. “What do you think?”

Wetting her lips, she smoothes her hand over her robes. “I’ll distract him at the ground, if you want to go up.”

He shakes his head even as they begin to move, flashing closer and closer to the Hollow. Its screams echo dully in her ears. “You’re faster in the air than I am. I’ll take the ground.”

Nodding, she breaks off from him and pushes up into the air. The Hollow wails, a low and desperate sound, as she releases a binding spell. Power pulses at her fingertips, rising at her chest. It is a reminder that she is more, she is _fast_ , and she has this blade for a reason. Her fingers twist at the hilt of her sword. Ichigo yells up to her, his oversized sword gleaming in the sunset.

The Hollow shakes off the Kido. Its thick bulbous arm catches her right in the gut, and slams her back down to the ground. Air whistles in her ears and between the folds of her robes as she hits the ground with a sharp fierce rattle. The rain-softened ground only does so much to break her fall. She rolls onto her side with a thick reedy gasp, eyes shut.

“Rukia!”

“I’m fine!” she shouts to Ichigo immediately, her breath rattling in her chest.

She thumbs blood from the corner of her mouth as she rises to her feet. The hilt of her sword rests in her loose grip. He distracts too easily when she is there, she thinks as she watches him rise into the air, calling for his Bankai. Her sword hums in her hand, a glint of silver-ice light flashing across the blade. A headache throbs at her temple. She can feel the ache of her bones, the bruising at her back. Blood wells at a cut across her brow. But still, there is a cold surge at her fingertips that she cannot place, a need for _more_.

Swallowing, she pushes off her heels and flashes behind the Hollow, capturing its feet with another binding spell. Ichigo comes down with a hard flash of ruby-dark light, cleaving the Hollow in half just as it starts to break the Kido on its legs. With a sharp mournful screech, the Hollow shudders, and dissipates.

Ichigo lands at her side, his free hand already reaching for her. “You all right?” he asks, his fingers curling at her elbow.

She nods, jerking her head towards the whimpering girl spirit a ways away. “Yes,” she says steadily.

His grip presses at her for just a moment before he nods and walks away towards the girl. Rukia looks down to her sword as she listens to Ichigo talk to the girl for a moment before he performs the Kenso on her spirit. There is something waiting for her inside the sword, too close and still too far for right now. It tastes like ice and wanting in the air, heavy on her tongue. _Come to me_ , she thinks as she looks at her sword. _Come to me_.

Warm fingers graze her hair, slipping in the thick swell of blood at her brow. “Hey,” Ichigo murmurs, his gaze heavy on her as he thumbs the blood from her skin.

Her sword shivers as she does. She sheathes it at her hip and turns to him. “They are breaking Kido spells,” she murmurs. “We should get a message to Soul Society.”

“We can tell them tomorrow,” he says shortly. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” she mutters, the ache from her impact swelling in her muscles.

“Is that my kind of I’m fine or a real one?” he asks dryly, eyes darkening.

She tucks her hair behind one ear, as his fingers press gently at her brow. “It’ll be a quick stop at Urahara’s shop. He’ll relay the message.”

Ichigo rolls his eyes, muttering to himself as he drops his hand from her brow. But there is an acquiescence there that she appreciates; it feels like a real sort of partnership, when they work together. Not for the first time, she thinks of a reality where Ichigo comes to Soul Society, as a regular Shinigami, a part of a division. It would make things – well, she isn’t sure what it would make things, she thinks as they hop from rooftop to rooftop to Urahara’s shop. But she would always know where he was.

At her hip, her blade shivers.

*

It isn’t for hours, after Urahara’s shop, and Ichigo’s dinner with his family, and her own reports into Soul Society, that they are alone again, with his mouth on hers and hands all over.

The room is dark, cooler now, the windows wide open to let in the even spring breezes. The aches from battle follow her to her gigai, a hard strain at her back and a lingering pounding at her temple. She thinks she can still taste blood on her tongue as she sits at his desk, another coded note sprawling itself across blank pages. In the closet, Kon sleeps with a loud snore, too loud for such a small little thing.

Downstairs, the harsh rise and fall of dinner and the clean-up afterwards settles and evens out. Ichigo and Isshin aren’t at each other’s throats, at least verbally, which is always a good sign. Rukia wets her lips and sets the pencil down. Her dress is rumpled from earlier; she can still feel the marks of his mouth on her throat and breasts in this body.

Ichigo calls down to his sisters from the stairs and the hall, his voice growing louder as he approaches his room. She turns in the chair, her arm resting across the hard back as the door opens.

“Sounded like fun, tonight,” she says in greeting.

Ichigo shrugs, a plate of food in one hand as he shuts the door with the other. “The usual. Yuzu wants to spend the night at a friend’s tomorrow night, and Pops is sure something terrible will happen.”

“He cares, though,” she murmurs.

With another shrug, Ichigo walks over and slides the plate in front of her on the desk. “Brought you dinner. You feeling all right?”

“Fine,” she says immediately, her fingers rising to her bruised brow.

He catches her hand in his, his large fingers curling over hers as he stands over her. In the dimness he looks taller, sharper. “Want to eat now?”

She rises to her feet. “No,” she murmurs.

“Good,” he replies, voice rough in his throat. He leans down and presses his mouth to hers, his arm a hard steady weight at the small of her back. They are pressed chest to chest once more, and the shudders from earlier have returned, fast and warm through her body. It never feels quite like this when she is in her Shinagami form. It almost makes the hassle of a gigai worth it.

Soon, she has him pressed back onto his bed, her skirt at her hips and his trousers undone and off. As one hand slides between her thighs, the other latches at her wrist, her sword hand. The press of his callused fingertips to hers tugs at her chest, a hard pull she can’t ignore. She is slick and tight around him, muscles trembling as his fingertips find her clit. They haven’t bothered with shirts and discarding clothes; not after the afternoon, and the night they’ve had.

“ _Rukia_ ,” he murmurs as she rocks her hips into his, their rhythm stuttering and shaking. He sits up to search out her mouth, changing the feel and depth of him insider her. She moans against his lips as their sword hands intertwine. Her other hand bites into his chest, the muscle there. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he whispers as he presses a thumb to her clit, his teeth biting at her bottom lip.

Here, with him inside her and his mouth on hers and their hands together, she can’t do anything but moan his name under her breath. Tonight there are no reminders of silence, of quiet; everything is kept close and between their quickening breaths, as it usually is after a night of Hollows. His touch is light on her tender skin, his mouth too gentle. She bites and nips at his lips, her free hand digging into his chest over his heart. She knows where to find his soft spots, the scars he’ll never forget.

As his mouth drags down her throat to the open line of her chest, to the thick rise of Aizen’s scar, she knows he does, too.

When she comes with her heart in her throat and his skin sticky against hers, she cannot help how his name forms on her lips, how it breathes out in her voice. He shakes against her, his breaths a hard push of air and warmth at her skin. It’s always too fast, too hot and fierce.

“Renji thinks he knows something,” she says later, lying on her stomach next to him. They are changed and cleaned up and tucked into his bed, as they do most night.

Ichigo snorts, his hands tucked behind his head. The night shadows soften the hard lines of his arms and chest, leaving his face vulnerable and pale. “I’m sure he thinks so.”

She wets her lips, laying her cheek against the cool pillow. “They want me to go back,” she says at last, the words weighing on her chest heavily.

He shifts his weight, a hand settling at her waist under the sheets. “You go when you have to. I get it. But you’re still here now,” he says, eyes dark and wide on her face.

Nodding, she shuts her eyes, an odd queasiness in her middle. His fingers rise, falling to her injured brow. Fingertips skate over the place where she had bled not hours ago.

“Why did you use Bankai?” she asks after a moment. “It was a little much for a Hollow.”

He’s too quiet for too long. She can hear their heartbeats, close in rhythm, fluttering in her ears.

“It’s too hard to watch you fall,” he says at last, almost too softly for her to hear.

Color licks at her throat, face warming with it. She doesn’t answer, just lets him card his fingers through her hair before he takes his hand back. They do not like to sleep touching, at least not at first.

Eventually, their sword hands meet in the night. It is inevitable.

*


End file.
